British ExPats On-Line Voting (Abidjan)

Last week the UK Electoral Commission has launched a dedicated overseas voter registration campaign. The campaign aims to encourage British citizens living overseas to register to vote ahead of the UK Parliamentary General Election, due to take place on Thursday 7 May. Estimates show that there may be as many as 5.5 million UK nationals living overseas, but there are fewer than 20,000 currently on the electoral registers. This is the first UK General Election where people can register to vote on line. The Electoral Commission hopes that the new online process will encourage more UK nationals living overseas to register to take part in elections.

To register as an overseas voter, UK residents overseas must have been registered in a UK constituency within the last fifteen years. Those registering to vote no longer need to have their signature attested by Consular staff, provided they have a National Insurance Number. (I’m checking on the exact procedure if you don’t have an NI number; if that does affect anyone, they can contact me.)

To register to vote, UK citizens should visit Protected content

The deadline for registering online to vote is Monday 20 April. Those who wish to register for a postal vote and who live in a country with a poor postal service will need to register well before this deadline.